


All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

by spacemonkey



Category: Fake News RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4519491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemonkey/pseuds/spacemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon and Stephen talk things over. Written in 2007</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this way back in Feb of 2007. It's only little but I was pretty happy with it.

Stephen had been staring at Jon for the past four minutes, over his mocha frappuccino. The moment had become uncomfortable fast, and Jon thought best to break it.  
  
“You know,” he started. “That drink of yours is, uh, it’s pretty girly.”  
  
“Because a choc-chip banana smoothie is better.” Stephen gestured to Jon’s drink without tearing his eyes away. “It’s also disgusting, by the way.”  
  
“Disgustingly delicious, and why are you still staring at me?”  
  
“Thinkin’.”   
  
“I see. Could you avert your thinking to something else?” Jon picked up the closest object, held it up for Stephen to see. “Perhaps this salt shaker. I’m sure it would love the attention.”  
  
He set it back down on the table, frowning. “The salt shaker probably doesn’t get much attention. It just gets used and put back down, which-”  
  
“I’m thinking about you,” Stephen interrupted with a laugh. “If I was thinking about a salt shaker, I’d be looking at the salt shaker.”  
  
“Why are you thinking about me?” Jon paused, narrowed his eyes. “You’re not mentally undressing me, are you?”  
  
Stephen gave a smile, shook his head. “I just realized,” he took a sip of his drink, swallowed. “If you grew your hair long, I wouldn’t be able to tell you and Richard Lewis apart.”  
  
Jon shrugged, undeterred. “Maybe if I grew a couple inches and used some hair dye, sure. Without those two factors, I’d just look like my dad.”  
  
There was a silence, Jon fiddling with the salt shaker while Stephen went back to staring.  
  
It became uncomfortable again. “What?” Jon asked finally.  
  
“You don’t talk about him often.”  
  
The salt shaker slipped from Jon’s hand. He cursed, frowned up at Stephen. “Richard?”  
  
“Your dad,” Stephen said gently. He batted Jon’s hand away and cleaned up the salt, tossed it over his right shoulder.   
  
“I talk about my dad all the time.”  
  
“You  _joke_  about him, you mean.”  
  
“Same thing.” Jon stirred his smoothie with a finger, attempting oblivion.  
  
“Completely different.”  
  
Jon laughed. “Okay, Dr Phil, enlighten me. Where are we heading with this conversation?” He licked the chocolate off of his finger, waiting for the reply.  
  
Stephen took a thoughtful sip of his mocha frappuccino. “Why is it that all comedians seem to have childhood issues?”  
  
“Not all of them.”  
  
“The good ones do,” Stephen said with a smile.  
  
"Well played," Jon grinned. He took a sip of his drink, shrugged at Stephen. “It’s textbook,” he said simply.  
  
“Defense mechanism?”  
  
“Bingo.”  
  
“So, anyone who didn’t have childhood trauma can pretty much forget about doing standup?”  
  
“Sure.” Jon gave Stephen a sly look. “They might be better suited to improv.”  
  
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Stephen muttered.  
  
“I’m just saying, you’re more likely to be heckled doing stand up then you are improv.”  
  
“I bet you were heckled a  _lot_.”  
  
“Of course, on the basis of me sucking. But I somehow developed thick skin, Stephen.”  
  
Stephen nodded. “A lot of the improv people had thick skin too, you know.”  
  
“I know you do,” Jon said softly.  
  
There was another silence, Jon doing the staring this time. He broke it quickly. “You okay?”  
  
“I’m fine.” Stephen picked up the salt shaker. “You were talking about the psychological abuse this salt shaker has to face?”  
  
Jon watched Stephen for a few more moments, then took the shaker.   
  
“Yeah.” He nodded, regarded the salt shaker for a moment. “I’d think that it would have some serious complexes, you know?”  
  
“Abandonment issues?” Stephen suggested.  
  
Jon gave the salt shaker a sad look. “Poor bastard.”


End file.
